


Drowning Inside His Heart

by Elywyngirlie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood Play, But so She, Curses, Dueling, F/M, Fighting, He's a Liar, Head Boy Tom Riddle, Its supposed to be a one shot, Liberal Use of Crucio, Manipulative Tom Riddle, Obsession, Oral Sex, Potions, Sexually Explicit Scenes, Slug Club, Stalking, Time Travel Twist, Tom Riddle Thinks, some light torture, unhealthy relationship dynamic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 06:57:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20810948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elywyngirlie/pseuds/Elywyngirlie
Summary: Tom Riddle savored her cruelty. He coveted her. He relished in her darkness.He just never thought she'd use it against him.





	Drowning Inside His Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Pablo Neruda's "Nothing But Death" 
> 
> Also I'm sorry. I can't write smut anymore. I didn't expect to write this. So, yeah. Sorry. It's intended to be a one shot, although I do have an idea for another 1k words on how it would look.

He savored her cruelty the way a sommelier relished the way a hot summer burned its way through the grapes and left lingering hints of bare skin, sweat, and soil. The way her wrist twisted, the way her mouth pursed, the way that the anger burned away into righteousness.

How she would always paint herself as righteous. 

Hermione Granger tossed her riot of curls and sniffed. That self satisfied gleam crept back into her eyes as Avery lay at her feet, trying not to sob. Tom could feel the disappointment welling up, so familiar, the only constant in this wretched life. 

“Welllll...I was going to lecture about never turning your back on your opponent but Miss Granger has effectively demolished Mr. Avery,” Professor Merrythought said quietly, the scuff of her shoes on the stone a loud rasping in the room. The rest of the class shied away from Granger, a mixture of awe, fear, and disgust. He noted those with disgust as he watched Merrythought look at Granger out of the side of her eyes. A long, cautious look. Tom bit back a smirk. 

Merrythought dismissed the class and Tom ordered Abraxas Malfoy to accompany Avery to the infirmary. As Malfoy hastily did his bidding, floating Avery’s body out of the classroom, Tom couldn’t help the twist of his lips. 

How utterly useless. 

He cast a surreptitious glance at Granger stuffing her books in her bag. They had most of their classes together. He sidled up next to her. 

“Miss Granger, may I walk you to Potions?” 

She lifted her chin. “I believe I know the way, Riddle.” 

The way she nearly spat his name. Her tawny eyes shimmered with a nameless emotion. He didn’t realize there were dark brown flecks in them. To be sure, he only noticed her as she was Dumbledore’s niece. And that she bested him constantly in Charms, tied in Transfiguration, trailed in Potions. Lost by a whisker in Defense. 

His own little shadow. Surely a Dumbledore plant. 

“Oh Miss Granger, I believe you know a lot of things,” his husky voice skimmed over her knuckles as he raised her hand to his lips. “But I don’t believe you know what I’m about to show you.” 

It would be an easy trick to shove her into a classroom. To crucio. To pillage her mind. Or to snog her senseless. He wasn’t sure which would work best with this witch. He’d watched Fleamont Potter worm his way next to the Ravenclaw. 

“Back off Riddle,” he hissed. He grabbed Granger by the arm and dragged her out of the room. Rage spiked through Riddle and his fingers twitched, abated only when Granger yanked her arm back from Potter, her shrill voice chiding him for his toxic masculinity, whatever that meant. 

Power like hers was meant to be co-opted or destroyed. 

He would normally place her in the “to be destroyed” column. She wasn’t a pureblood. She shrouded herself with goodness. But he could still taste the edge of sadism. She had watched the blood spill out of Avery and she had smiled. 

She had tasted like him. 

* * *

Slughorn did not object to Tom’s whispered suggestion of cross house pairings. Of course it helped that the NEWTs classes were so small that Tom was able to wrangle being Granger’s partner. He watched her carefully slice the gillyweed before delicately sliding into the bubbling cauldron. 

She wore neither makeup nor her hair in the overly intricate hairstyles, as other witches did. She was prim, she was proper, trim, and neat. She was simple. The only thing excessive about her was her hair constantly escaping her bun. She did not respond much to his flattery. 

He poked and he prodded in Potions. She gave curt answers and never met his eyes. 

His need to acquire her only grew when she brewed a perfect Draught of Living Death. 

“Your sense of timing is exquisite,” he murmured as she ladled her potion into a vial. 

Her lips quirked. “As your potion was praised as nearly as much as mine, that compliment might as well be meant for you.”

“Do you prefer not to receive compliments, Miss Granger? Most women enjoy them.”

She tucked back a wayward curl and shot an amused glance at him. “I prefer sincerity to lies.” 

He opened his mouth to protest but she slid out of her seat to hand Slughorn her potion before he could properly form words. Her wand was out, the cauldron vanished and scoured, as she grabbed her book and left. 

Flawless, fluvial wandwork. 

Tom could feel a rawness growing between his ribs. An odd sort of longing. As it settled into his stomach, he identified it easily. After all, it had been his one true companion all through his childhood, through wars and rations, and long, glacial nights. 

Hunger. 

* * *

She was an excellent dancer. He stole her away from Weasley during one of the Slughorn’s meetings. She was fluid, her palm neatly fitting into his, her tempo matching his as he guided across the floor. 

“Why do you always hide in the library?” he asked, surprised at his own question.

“Why do you care?”

“You’re a treasure, Granger. Surely, you must want to shine.”

“To shine means that I need others’ validation. I don’t need anything but my own.” It was biting, it was crisp, and cool, but how her lips trembled and her cheeks flushed. 

“You will burn yourself out before if you’re not careful,” he warned. 

“And you’ll destroy yourself,” she snapped back. His hand tightened around hers and he may have dipped her more forcefully than was warranted. 

“You could stop me.”

“Why would you listen to me?” 

“You and I are so alike, Granger. How could I not listen to myself?” With a sly grin, he baited the hook. As her eyes widened, he spun her off and left her to meet some slimy haired git whom Slughorn thought it was important for him to know. 

* * *

“What do you mean we’re just alike?” The question was hissed over the quiet choppings and muted mumblings of the classroom. Tom raised a brow, gazing down his nose at her, before dropping in the ashwinder egg. Their potion turned green and he lazily raised his hand, the spoon obediently switching stirring directions. 

He adored magic’s acquiesce. 

“Meet me at midnight in the Come and Go Room.”

“I’m not meeting you there alone. And it’s after curfew.”

Tom chuckled and leaned toward her, one rebellious curl brushing his chin. She smelled like honeysuckle and lightning and cypress. A forest at twilight, hovering at the edges of darkness and light. 

“I never thought you were one for the rules, Hermione.” 

She jerked away as he whispered her name. She blinked furiously and he could see her mind twisting, the leaps of logic, the freckles on her nose moving as she worked through what he wanted from her. Either would work. He thought he could enjoy mapping her skin with his mouth and his hands. 

He thought he could enjoy the way her blood would rest, burgundy against English rose. 

Either way. She would be his. 

And the thought sent a shiver up his spine. 

* * *

Love was a weapon in his arsenal, the same as any curse or hex. He considered it one of the deadliest to use. He still had to deal with Lara Edgecombe following him around, convinced that his heart belonged to her. She had been a useful entry into certain pureblood circles and access to a certain book but other than that, she was a bleating idiot, more focused on her reflection than her magic. Now she panted and whined after him and he knew he was going to have to imperio her soon to fall in love with another slobbering oaf like herself. 

Or at least be publicly found naked with him. 

It disgusted him how purebloods barely managed to make it through the rather simple Hogwarts curriculum. All of this power, all of nature, ready to be bent to their will, and they worried more about a simple charm for decorating their house or coloring their lips. 

How limited, especiallly as he burned. 

Granger saw past that. She could perform household charms as effortlessly as her other peers, despite her arguments for womens’ liberation, or so rumors said. He overheard her arguing with Amy Higgenbottom that life should be more than who you married and what pattern was desired by own’s husband.

Hermione had _ vision _. 

She stood before him now and her fingers trembled. Her wand holstered in those ingenious little arm bands. So easy to access. So ready to fight. Her hair leapt around her, as if they were snakes, ready to strangle him. Excitement rushed along his skin and he wondered what she would taste like. If she would taste like mint and leather like him. 

Everything about her was designed to appeal to him. 

“What do you want Riddle?” 

He waved his hand. “Don’t you enjoy the room I’ve created for us?” Her eyes obediently flicked around the dim room. Candles hung in the air, flickering moodily. It was a midnight meadow clearing, summer air crackling with the potential of a storm. Flowers blossomed at their feet. It was evocative, designed to romance or to smother her screams if torture was selected for tonight’s activities. 

“It’s pretty. But what. do. you. want.”

He surprised himself as he said: “You, Hermione.”

She snorted. “You. You barely know me.” 

“But I know myself. And I saw it in your duel with Avery. With your duel with me. When you fought Nott in the corridor earlier this year.” He stepped forward and smiled at her. “You believe that magic is more than just for households and husbands. You can sense it, can’t you? Its potential? Its possibilities?”

She gave him a sidelong look but he could see the desire steal across her features. 

“I don’t want to dominate with my magic,” she said. “I want to understand.”

“I can help you with that,” he promised. “Together, you and I can do wonderful things.”

She scoffed, stepping back from him. Anger sparked around him. He didn’t want her to move away. 

“You work with me? A halfblood? What about all that pureblood nonsense you sprout with the crew you hang with?” 

Tom sighed impatiently. It was becoming difficult to juggle all the things he promised. 

“It’s an easy in, you see that, don’t you? People just want to be told what they want to hear. And what does an orphan like me have to offer but pretty lies?” 

It was both more honest and more dissembling than he had ever done before. He had so much more to offer. They should be groveling below him, his boot on their neck, those inbred pureblood idiots. But muggles were little more than savages. He thought of Mrs Cole and her easy hand with the leather strap. He thought of her and Frank and her loud screeching as Frank bent her over the desk and she shoved money meant for food into his hands afterwards. 

They were _ disgusting _. Loathsome little cockroaches that he hated to ruin his shoes to destroy. 

Luckily for him, the avada was an easy whisper. 

“And what do you get with me?” 

He bent toward her. Her hair wrapped around him and he swore he heard hissing. He wanted to laugh. Desire and anger and righteousness coursed through her. Little fool met his eyes and he could see the curiosity before walls slammed up. 

He smiled.

He knew what a terrifying thing it could be. 

And she did not flinch. 

“All I want, Hermione, is you.”

She licked her lips and he found himself watching the movement avidly. Rawness scraped its way inside his bone caged heart. He thought it might be alive for a moment. Her eyelids twitched. She blinked long and slow, and exhaled. Her breath smelled like coffee and chocolate and he wanted it on his mouth. 

“Alright,” she breathed. “Name your terms.” 

* * *

Nott writhed, his body turning in on itself, his throat hoarse from horrified screaming Tom lifted his wand and ended the curse. He surveyed his followers as Nott’s choked cries echoed in the empty classroom. 

He could see the disgust and the fear. Admiration swam behind the fear. It always did. People were weak; they would always flock to those they deemed stronger. This was why a social contract worked so well. It was why he would succeed. 

Granger seemed the less affected. Her nose wrinkled as Nott had pissed himself but her face remained impassive. Inert. As if waiting for something. He skimmed her mind and found only the mundane. 

She was certainly worthy of her place in the Death Eaters. 

“I expect better work from you, Thoros,” Tom hissed. He raised his wand and everyone flinched. Even Granger. He couldn’t stop his lips from spreading, his teeth from peeking out. Malfoy swallowed in revulsion. He took a delicate sip of their pain. 

“Dolohov. You failed to bring me the documents I required,” he silkily stated. Dolohov stepped forward, trembling. 

“Yes, my lord.”

“You also called Hermione a slut in Potions.” 

Dolohov sneered, all fear dropped. “Why else would she be here, my lord? We’ve let no other women in and then her? The halfblood?” 

Discontent rippled through the room. Tom had sensed their unhappiness when Hermione had taken the mark. She was not a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. She wasn’t even a pureblood or a Slytherin. She was a Ravenclaw, more acceptable than a Gryffindor, but she was odd. She rarely flattered and simpered. She destroyed Avery in Defense. She didn’t belong. She wasn’t a part of them. 

He knew more than most what that meant. Their magic was a weak fire, contained in fireplaces, tamed and tempered. His was a wildfire and he wanted to consume. She was a bonfire, resting on the knife edge. With the right wind, she would destroy and ravage. A contained chaos. 

He smirked and Dolhov trembled. 

“Hermione,” Tom called. She stepped forward. He beckoned with this fingers. He would be the push she needed. 

“Come show Dolohov just exactly why I recruited you.” 

The words had barely slipped his mouth before her crucio had Dolohov screaming. He leaned back and relished the terror in the room.

She was magnificent. 

* * *

Tom Riddle understood that he was on the cusp of being a man and had expected his hormones to relent their incessant demands. He had managed to push some of them aside. He had, embarrassingly, taken care of some of them manually. He had used a few girls to satisfy himself when nothing else would work. 

Sex was filthy and it was muggle and it was distracting. When he ought to have been scouring tomes for the darkest curses, the sacred knowledge they dared to hide from him, the heir of Slytherin, he was instead watching Hermione Granger tie her hair up, a few strands twisting in the spring breeze. They fluttered annoyingly against her slim neck and he should have wondered how it would have felt to squeeze that pale column of meat and bone, to hear her gasp as she learned what it meant to defy him. 

Instead he wondered if her skin tasted like that persistent honeysuckle smell that trailed her. He wondered how her gasps would sound as he slid her under him. She had never been seen kissing a boy but he didn’t doubt she had. Her lips were too tempting for them to have never been explored before. 

He idly wondered who it was. An odd, prickling feeling, settled in his chest and he patted himself. Was there a nettle in his robe? 

“Tom?” she called, twisting to look back at her. Her sleeve slipped for a moment and her collarbone peeked out at him. He thought moving for the next ten minutes was a bad idea. 

“Are we going to start with Transfiguration?” she asked, tilting her face. It would be so easy to bend down, to snare those lips. 

He turned away and faced the lake.

Lord Voldemort had no need of such muggle things. 

* * *

Hermione Granger was no screamer. 

She was a gasper, a whiner, a nails down your back biter. 

He fucking adored it. He coveted it, stored his memories behind secure walls, and snapped his hips as furiously as he could into her. She gave as she got--razor teeth and knife edged smiles and ravenous cunt. She ground down on him, hands fisting in hair and he groaned. He ravaged her neck and she wore the bruises for him, only from him. He longed to parade her before others, to shout that his clever witch was his and his only and if you dared touch a single hair on her head, he’d fucking murder you. 

But he didn’t. He disdained such simple emotions. He lay in the bed she had transfigured for him and episky’d the bruises away. She frowned at him and he knew he was making a petulant face.

“You can always make more,” she said dismissively. Her breasts were still bruised and rose tipped and he reached forward to pinch them.

“I will.”

The smile they shared was not one of joy but of hunger. 

* * *

Defense was interminably long and Merrythought had paired him up with her. It was protracted and it was arduous. Her curls broke free of her bun as she slid to the ground, wordlessly hurling a freezing curse at him. He blocked it easily and tossed a simple incarcerous. Their spells grew rowdier, more difficult, and the only sounds were their ragged breaths. 

She threw an avis at him, followed by an expelliarmus. He countered easily with a bombarda and her shield only caught the edge of it. She fell back and her wand flew to him. The rest of the class applauded. 

She looked up at him, disheveled, tie askew and he licked his lips. Blood gathered at the corner of her mouth and she wiped it away, smearing it across her cheek. She kept his gaze even as she dismissed Merrythought’s suggestion to visit the infirmary. 

He helped her up and handed her the wand. The rest of class shuffled out and he kept his hand on her back as he guided her out of the room, threw up a disillusionment charm, and pushed her into an empty classroom. 

“Tom what--”

He dragged his tongue across her blood flecked cheek. 

She tasted like sunshine, sweat, and soil. Parchment and mint. Leather and cypress. 

He snagged her torn lips with his own, hands frantically pulling at her blouse. He was dimly aware she was casting charms around the room and a charm on herself as he popped her breasts out of her bra, cupping and squeezing, her high pitched whines driving him roughly against her. 

He muttered spells against her skin, his tongue exploring the dip in her collarbone, her hips rolling against his. Vines spilled out of the beams overhead at his command and wrapped around her wrists, lifting her up. A cushioning charm followed quickly even as he shoved lace aside and plunged his fingers inside of her. 

She writhed. 

Oh, how it was different from how the boys fell on the ground screaming. How their bodies jerked. How their mouths foamed. How one word could describe two different situations was beyond his hazy thinking capabilities at the moment as he sat, staring up at her--breasts pushed up by her bra, framed by straining white blouse, her tie tight around her neck. Her mouth was open, her whine was sharp and ruined, her dark curls draping her face, her body rocking, arms stretched overhead. Her protest was meek even as her tawny eyes darkened. 

He knew that if he lifted her skirt and pushed aside the soaked satin, he’d find her wet and glistening for him. 

Only him. 

Pleasure rumbled through him and his jerked his fingers out. She cried his name, a sound so sweet, he closed his eyes. 

“I love it when you try to destroy me,” he whispered as he freed himself. She whimpered.

“You can do so much more, Hermione, if you just let go,” he grunted as he slid inside of her, biting his cheek at her tight wetness. He still wasn’t certain how she was always so ready for him. How it still felt so good, so freeing and disbelieving, as she slid down him. How not an iota of fear graced her gamine features as she let want spill out of her eyes. 

Tom leaned forward and took a nipple in his mouth, rolling it between his teeth, nicking it with a sharp nip, cooper and bitter and honey sweet. He groaned, pulling back to let her flavor coat his tongue, watching her move with desperation. His name was a chant on her lips, a spell, seeking some truth in whatever force shoved them together. She hissed and he gloated; he understood that language. 

He lifted her skirt and watched her move over him. His expression grew dark and savage. 

This was his. 

He wove the spell against the fine hairs on his arm as he kissed them, against the paper cut on her thumb, along the salty roughness of her knuckles, the freckled expanse of her neck. Her tattered lips as he bit down, leaving her ragged and frayed, wrecked and hopeless. 

She was bound to him.

He honestly wasn’t sure if he could ever feel more pleased than in this moment. 

* * *

Hermione gazed in horror as Fleamont Potter wrenched his hand away from her, as if stung. His eyes glittered as his hand began to swell and she watched fear overcome him as foam tricked out of his mouth. 

“Potter!” she screamed as he began to shake. Merrythought shoved past her, wand moving furiously. 

“Granger, what did he touch?” Merrythought snarled. 

But clever Hermione. She had already raised her chin and had met his gaze. She was a barely contained storm, vibrating in the small room. His ruined, beautiful thing. The cruelty he adored slid into her eyes and he wondered what she planned to do to him. 

“He didn’t touch anything but her,” Walburga Black screamed. “Filthy halfblood!” 

Tom marked her name down in the “to be destroyed” column. So limited in her thinking and in her use. She wanted to put on a pedestal, to be admired. He’d show her admiration, his mind reviewing the sort of curses he’d use for a useless thing like her. 

Merrythought hustled out of the room, shouting directions at Riddle to dismiss everyone and to handle things as Head Boy. Potter had already turned a deadly shade of white, his lips almost blue, his breaths glacial puffs of air. 

That line would end, Tom thought, pleased. 

The room emptied, leaving only Hermione. The door slammed shut and locked. He smiled, all teeth. He could scent the blood in the water. 

“What did you do?” she demanded hoarsely. Tom raised a hand and she flinched as he cupped her cheek. 

“You belong to me,” he simply said, waiting for her to catch up. He could see the moment when the realization hit. She stared at the hand that Potter had touched earlier, understanding dawning, darkness forming along her brow. He could smell the power gathering around her. 

Her wand flashed faster than he had anticipated. He had expected a bombarda. A stupefy. 

Never a crucio. 

Even as he twisted on the floor, blood filling his throat as he screamed it raw, he knew he had pushed her into an inferno that he couldn’t control. 

The spell didn’t fizzle, didn’t fade. It tore through him, sizzling his nerves, nails shredding his mind. He threw himself away from it as much as he could, thinking of his ring and diary. If she killed him, he had a back up. He was immortal. 

And, he thought, as the spell lifted and she stared down at him, lip curling, nostrils flaring, her breathing as loud as his, she would always be his. Blackness stole over him and he triumphed in how no man could touch her. 

He had ensured it. 

* * *

He woke up in a bed that he had become familiar with throughout the weeks. The one Hermione had transfigured. She sat in a chair by him, wand dangling between fingers. Twilight filtered through the windows. Almost the full day had passed then, with him asleep. 

“What?” he rasped, his bones sore and abraded. He raised his head and wished he didn’t as the headache took up residence behind his eyes. 

“I have some pain potions, if you want them.” The offer was quiet. He didn’t hear remorse. He planned her punishments as he gratefully sucked down the potions she fed him at arm's length. The pain faded into a soft whisper and he propped himself on his elbows. She scurried back to her chair. 

“That was terribly naughty, my Hermione.” 

“As if what you did to me wasn’t,” she snapped. Her hair frizzed around her, shadows under her eyes, as if grief were tearing her apart.

“Potter died.”The words fell from her lips, roughened and worn and decaying. Shrouded in disbelief. 

Tom shrugged. “Good. Not as if he ever offered anything useful.” Hermione drew in a sob and he frowned. Was she closer to him than he had assumed? She gave him a look laden with sorrow and stood up to pace toward the window. He flopped against the bed, exhausted. 

“Can you take the spell off?” 

“No.” Oh he could. He definitely could. But he would never. Even as his muscles protested his sitting up, even as he knew she would need to be punished for that act, he knew that she was meant for him. Such power, such passion, could be tamed. It could be bent. 

It was his to mould. 

“Does it affect just men?” 

His lips twitched. “At the moment.” 

Her swallow was loud enough to click in his ears. 

“I don’t share, Hermione.”

“No, you’re just as selfish as I expected.” She turned toward him, tears shimmering in her eyes. “How much of it was real? And how much was a lie?” 

“All of it was real, Hermione. I told you. You’re mine. And you know I don’t like anyone touching my things.” His power flared through the room as he spoke and she shrunk back. He stood, gathering his darkness around him, and loomed over her. She was a petite thing. Her bottom lip trembled and he could see the healing rip in her bottom lip where his teeth had torn into her. 

He expected retaliation. He expected war, his fingers seeking his wand. 

He never expected to see hunger in her eyes as she sank to her knees, scrabbling for his zipper. He grabbed the table, groaning, as her lips sealed around his cock. 

“No exceptions to the rule?” she sighed, tongue running down the length of him. He shook his head, cursing the hormones tearing through him, even as he thrust into her mouth. He watched her move lazily, her mouth tight and hot, teeth a gentle scrape that sent shivers skittering along his spine. She was his, only his; this would be only his image to savor. 

The evening air was cool and soft, the only sounds were her wet lips smacking his taunt skin. His groans became needy, and his hand pulled on her hair. She whined. He pushed himself deep into her as he came, watching her jaw work, her eyes widening as he pinched her nose shut. Her terror surged through him and he moaned. He let go and she fell back, come dribbling down her chin, her chest heaving. 

“We will be great, together,” he told her, hard breaths shaking his still worn frame. 

He didn’t watch her wand lift. 

“You leave me no choice,” she muttered, half to herself. His eyes snapped toward her as she whispered:

“Obliviate.”


End file.
